Gorleston homeowner puts burglar in a bush

The bush on Beccles Road which the hapless burglar found himself falling into after picking on the wrong house.

Archant

A homeowner chased a burglar and threw him into a bush, before taking back his son’s bicycle.

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The 61-year-old, who does not wish to be named, awoke at home in Beccles Road, Gorleston, at 1am on Tuesday and saw a young man in a baseball cap riding the bicycle through an alley to the front of the house, carrying a rucksack filled with food from the shed.

The have-a-go homeowner bolted after the burglar and grabbed hold of the rucksack just as he was getting set to pedal off, and threw him into bushes across the road.

The man said: “That is when it impacted that he could have had a weapon. My family have said to me ‘was that wise?’ You do not think of it at the time, just there is someone out there who is nicking something of yours and maybe you can stop them getting away. Otherwise you are just standing at the gates saying ‘goodbye food, goodbye bike’. I am not a hero, I was just protecting my own.”

It is not the first time the man, who lives with his wife and two sons aged 19 and 24, has experienced crime at close quarters. When he was 17, he managed to escape from robbers who tried to steal takings he and a colleague had collected from a Tesco store where they worked in London.

This week’s burglary saw all items recovered with help from a young man and woman thought to be witnesses.

A police spokesman said: “While we don’t encourage people to pursue offenders, clearly the gentleman in this case has been extremely brave.”

The burglar was described as about 21 years old, 6ft, with facial hair. Police would also like to trace the two witnesses.